New World Notes

NWN in Japanese : セカンドライフのイラン人住民が抗議デモ中にSLから消えた

＜オリジナル英文記事＞先週イランで勃発した大統領選に強く異議を唱える抗議活動が広まった時、私は、イランに住んでいるセカンドライフ住民を探した。昨年リンデンが出版した（上の）人口統計によれば、昨年の時点で100人を超える人がセカンドライフに定期的にログインしていた。その数は、今年はもっと増えていると思われるイランやペルシャを専門とするセカンドライフのグループは（下のように）沢山あり、その中でもメンバーが500人を超える最も大きい２つのグループ両方に登録し、グループIMで何度かむなしく「Hello？」というメッセージを繰り返してみたが、ほとんど何の反応も返ってこなかった。（最後に、一人のイラン人メンバーが答えてくれたが、海外に住んでいる人だった）

Peter Stindberg's Second Life Dashboard Link

Want to check out the new Second Life dashboard, the social network-esque web tools the Lindens recently announced? It's in limited invite beta, but Peter Stindberg found a workaround link that will take you to your dashboard page (at least for now.) I just used it to log into my Hamlet Au dashboard page, and it's a pretty impressive start -- events, group info, blog feeds, friend activity, etc. all on a single page. Add a group chat function and a feed into Twitter and Plurk, and we'd really start to see something hugely useful.

Spread This SL Blogger Meme: Who Inspired Your Avatar?

What do Derek Jacobi, Lara Croft, Phileas Fogg, Raquel Welch, Sophia Loren, Diana Rigg, Dorothy Dandridge, Linda Carter, and Diana Rigg have in common? Those real and fictional personages inspired the avatars of these several Second Life Residents. "Who inspired your avatar?" is a meme started by aviatrix Ms. Zoe Connolly (pictured), and I'd love to see more Second Life bloggers join in; always fascinating to read how an avatar identity evolved. It's also a window into the real life person behind the avatar. Given that Racquel Welch and Sophia Loren haven't been well known since the 60s and 70s, for example, can you make an educated guess at the age and gender of the people who chose them as reference points? (Image source.)

Nika Dreamscape Explores SL6B To Find Great Sites For You

Looking for great SL6B sites to visit? There's over 300 installations celebrating Second Life's sixth birthday, which is more than enough to prove the community's user-created content aspect remains strong, but as is often the case, also enough to totally overwhelm. NWN readers recommended several sites, and fortunately Nika Dreamscape is also doing excellent advance scouting through SL6B, documenting noteworthy installations with descriptions and photos. Here's her look at the Polaris installations; here's her tour through Cyro. (Above: Nika's pic of Nebula West by whyroc Slade: direct SLurl teleport at this link.)

Remembering Michael Jackson With Machinima

DJ Doubledown Tandino found two Second Life machinima tributes to the late and legendary Michael Jackson. The first video shows a lot of love but perhaps much less polish. The second machinima, recreating the zombie-fied dance moves from Jackson's "Thriller" video, is a popular classic and it takes me back; it's the winning entry in a very early Linden contest (2004 I'm fairly sure) to show off the new customized avatar animation feature that had recently been introduced. I'm sure there are other such machinima tribute videos, or will be soon. If you know of any, please link away in Comments.

New World Newsfeed: Rumors of Australian Second Life Censorship Seem Way Too Rumorish To Believe (For Now)

Over the last 24 hours I've been peppered with links as here and here which seem to suggest the Australian government is imminently planning to block access to Second Life from that country. It has to do with a recent Aussie Communication Ministry proposal to filter the online distribution of computer games not rated acceptable for teen play. I'm far from an expert on Australian jurisprudence, but near as I can tell, any relation with this news to Second Life is highly tenuous and conjectural at best. Reading this editorial, "Confirmed: Second Life, online adult games to be banned outright in Australia" from a pop culture site called The Inquisitr, some have assumed the worst. Thing is, nothing in the editorial actually confirms anything of the kind, and the very second sentence compares the government administrator involved to Joseph Goebbels, which is such a ham-fisted violation of Godwin's Law, the only thing it really confirms is the author's own penchant for dubious hyperbole. The Syndey Morning Herald has a slightly more informative take, but again, all we have there is "an ISP engineer and internet filtering critic" speculating that the new regulation may "place a cloud" over online worlds like Second Life. (Not a ban, do note, just a state of regulatory limbo.)

I'm checking with some sources to see if there's any actual substance connecting these numerous leaps of logic. For now, though, it's likely there are several layers of parliamentary, buereaucratic, and technical implementation before any of this impacts Australian access to Second Life (if it ever does.) So until that happens, perhaps all this free-floating anxiety could be better spent elsewhere? Say, lobbying the Australian government to generally improve its tech policies?

Chestnut's Choices 6/25 - 7/1: Experience Grace McDunnough's Musimmersion, Celebrate SL's 6th Birthday, Meet a Guide Dog for Blind SLers and much more...

Chestnut Rau’s weekly round-up of upcoming SL events…

By now most every one has heard about the Second Life 6th Birthday party which spans 20 regions and celebrates "The Future of Virtual Worlds."   SL6B is enormous and the sheer number of events is overwhelming.  There is live music spanning every genre from folk and indie to marching bands.  You can find talks and presentations on everything from the new adult continent to fashion.  The Party began on June 23rd and runs through June 30th with a closing speech by Philip Linden on June 29 at 11am.

How can you find out what is happening and when?  How can you track down the exhibits that interest you? A full calendar of events containing more than 400 events can be found here.  You can sort the events by date/time, location and type of event by using the handy drop down menus at the top left of the calendar. If you want to search for exhibits that interest you go here.  This page has the same handy search function and exhibits can be searched by type from enterprise, to education to visual arts, science and fashion.  The main landing point is in Paradox.  [SLurl teleport at this link] 

Also after the break: Participate in a Tiny Dogfight, Attend a Live Play, Listen to a panel discussion on the future of education in virtual worlds, and much much more

Educating Tut: Rezzable's Tutankhamen Exhibit As Educational Resource

Second Life's immersive King Tut exhibit opened a few months ago, and while I admire it quite a bit, this blog is also a partner to Rezzable, the UK metaverse developer which created it, so I'm a biased observer in this case. That in mind, I asked Ignatius Onomatopoeia, an educator who uses SL as a teaching tool, if he thought Tut could be a useful pedagogical resource for him and his colleagues. I was expecting some casual comments, but instead, he's responded with copious notes, including assignment suggestions and.an annotated tour. Still better, fellow teacher Viv Trafalgar created a gorgeous, graphic novel-style illustrated exploration, which begins here, and continues here.

Second Life's Iran Vigil Adds Presence and Shared Space and Embodiment to Uprising's Internet Support Community

Here's a few glimpses of yesterday's Second Life vigil for Iranians killed in the democratic uprising, taken from my brief visit. Lasting longer than 90 minutes, reports attendee Laraa Short, about forty people ultimately showed up for the vigil. No one there was reportedly from Iran, but some have family members who are. It wasn't only a time for mourning, but coordinating and growing the nascent "Support Iran" group which organized the event. What we're seeing here, then, is an immersive offshoot of the informal Internet community that has sprung up in the last couple weeks in random, often unexpected places -- on Twitter, in YouTube comment threads, on blogs like the the Huffington Post, and more. While those asynchronous communities mainly express their support through text, or simple gestures like changing one's Twitter avatar to green, this new Second Life adjunct brings 3D and real time to the experience, adding a sense of shared space and embodiment to this community's shared values.

As that suggests, more vigils are planned today, at 2:00pm and 7:00pm SLT -- direct SLurl teleport at this link.

Other World Notes: Blue Mars and User-Generated Content

In a recent post, several New World Notes readers expressed skepticism that Blue Mars, the upcoming virtual world, would allow user-generated content. Company VP Jim Sink was a recent guest on the SL-based Metanomics show, and here's what he said then:

We wholeheartedly embrace user-generated content. All of our tools are free to use and anyone can become a Blue Mars developer. But user generated content on its own won’t make Blue Mars a success. The real trick is to create a system where the very best user generated content can bubble to the top and to provide a platform where developers who create excellent content can be rewarded for their work and can be confident that piracy will be effectively managed.

Full transcript here; from Sink's description, content will be created offline, and thus, not dynamic, collaborative content created in-world a la Second Life -- but user-generated content all the same. And when you think about it, outside the sandboxes, how often in Second Life do you actually see dynamic, collaborative content creation? Most SL builds remain so static for so long, the technical means of their creation are almost beside the point. In any case, my own 2008 feature on Blue Mars is here. Image credit bluemarsonline.com.